X-COM: Numbers Game
by JPV
Summary: Treating soldiers like currency to be spent in order to 'purchase' victory is just part of the job in Xcom. Some hope to see the end of the war and bask in the peaceful glow, others know that sooner or later the war machine isn't going to return them as leftover change after paying the price of victory. These are the spare change soldiers. Violence, language, some lemon


A/N** _ANY ONE WHO FAVS AND PMS ME A PICTURE AND/OR DESCRIPTION OF THEM WITH A NAME OF THEIR CHOOSING WILL BE INCLUDED AS A CHARACTER EITHER A QUICK CAMEO OR MAYBE EVEN FULL TIME_**

A few things i wanna say before kicking this off. First off i do not own XCOM or anything i may reference in this fan fiction. Secondly I will mention music occasionally throughout the series and will try to remember to post a link to the song in my postscript authors notes for you readers to listen to. Lastly i greatly appreciate all reviews and comments on my work and hope to get as many as possible so whether you like it or hate it let me know thanks everyone hope you enjoy Numbers Game.

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"It's simple numbers. They have more."

-Starship Troopers

Somewhere in Afghanistan

July 14th, 2016

1345

Towns suddenly ghosting off radar wasn't new in the slightest down in 'Who-da-fuck-cares' Afghanistan. John Vire knew this, he and his chalk had rolled up on dozens of quiet hillside towns just to find that Hadji and his pals have either gotten the hell out of Dodge or have set up a real mess of an ambush for Uncle Sam's chosen few. If it wasn't for the sudden appearance of a certain pissed off E.T a few weeks back attacking a city in China and abducting the population Vire doubted his commanders would have given the quaint little town of 'Who-really-memorizes-these-names?' a second look. Now rather than chilling in the f.o.p Vire was bobbing his head in the back of a Blackhawk on his way to investigate yet another shitty town that may or may not be infested with what the termed 'Roswells' or 'Ros' for short.

Vire felt heavy smacks on the top of his kevlar helmet which snapped him from his spiteful thoughts back to reality. In Front of him was the ear to ear grin of his battle-buddy Scott McKenzie. Scott was a tall soldier with an ever present grin on his face and the standard army cut on his dark brown hair. Scott's grin was twice as wide today to no surprise for Vire. Pinned to the front of Scott's vest was a piece of plastic from the tv show 'Star Trek' that Scott showed more pride in than his medals. Ever since the reports went out that aliens had come to earth looking for a fight Scott hadn't stopped going on about how excited he was to be a real life Captain Curt, the other troops took to calling him Redshirt ever since.

"Aye J ya think we're going to actually get to stick it to Ros today?" Redshirt called over the comm.

Vire just shrugged and gave his M14 another once over while the soldier next to him by the name of Jordan Erlock gave Redshirt his own answer. "Ros is probably smarter than those chairborne back home Redshirt, he's gonna stay WAY clear of this a.o. Hell I doubt Hadji himself would be fightin' up in this bitch if he wasn't born here. I'm tellin' ya Redshirt, this just gonna be another fuckin' towel hunt" Erlock motioned shooting with his hand before breaking into laughter.

"Always got some shit to say, don't you corporal?" A much older and rougher soldier mumbled from across the chopper. Erlock stiffened and any who were laughing with him fell silent too.

"Look boys, and Erlock, I'm gonna drop a little bit of wisdom on you that may help yall numb-nutted mother fuckers get to be as old as me someday." If they weren't restrained every soldier would have leaned forward when Srgt. 'Sly' Henry spoke. "He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them." Every soldier in the chalk nodded and remained silent, letting the words seep in, all except Redshirt.

"D-Did you write that Sarge?" The helicopter broke into laughter while Redshirt's face grew to his namesake.

"You know what Redshirt when we get back to the f.o.p we're gonna sit down for a little story time alright?" Sly chuckled.

The jokes and banter were interrupted when a call came back from the pilot reporting to the men that they had one minute until they arrived at the target and there's smoke in the air. There were no smiles now, no whoops and hollers, just silence and the clink-clink-clink of thirteen men readying their weapons. With a smirk and the push of a button the co-pilot broke the tension of the men he carried when a robotic voice came over the speaker calling out 'Invaders must die' before breaking into techno tones. Soldiers laughed chuckled and bobbed heads to the beat while the pilots bumped fists.

A minute went by in an instant and before the rangers knew it they were fast roping down into the small smoldering town. Silently the soldiers spread and secured the large rooftop of the mud building across from another building where a different chalk was doing the same. Sly pressed two fingers to his neck and reported to the other chalk and the hawk that carried in his team. When he finished both hawks peeled off and into the distance and a h.u.d projected in every ranger's view through a glass eyepiece attached to their helmets. Much of the town was burning before the rangers arrived and the streets were covered in strange petrified humans covered in green goop. Vire was surveying the streets below through his scope, he was used to carnage but knowing that this was an outside power made him truly furious. It appeared the other chalk's sargent said something to Sly because the two sergeants started barking orders and directing their men simultaneously.

"Alright Chalk-One here's the deal: command wants us to search the town for hostiles and survivors, which means we've got a lot of ground to cover. Alpha you'll be taking southeast quadrant with Erlock and his 60. Bravo you've got southwest with Carlson and his SAW. Chalk-Two has the north side of the town so no worries there. Any of you boys see a Ros that looks meaner than you can handle pop red smoke and call it in we'll get you support. If shit hits the fan we fallback here for a hasty defence, alright?" the rangers respond with a hushed hooah.

With that the soldiers fanned out. Jogging down the dirt road from the building dubbed 'town hall' Vire stuck close behind Carlson. There were only a handful of buildings to search in this town so Vire already knew the odds were high that they would hit something bad fast. Before Bravo arrived at their first house a panicked voice came over the comms accompanied by the not-so-distant sound of gunshots and a strange unfamiliar 'shwoop sound'. Bravo was going to turn to head for the distress call when in a flash of green light Carlson's chest exploded. Next to die was a young trooper named Max with a plasma bolt to the head, he was the last to fall before the rangers dove into cover. Cpl. Smith reported the contact and popped a red smoke as ordered when he finally noticed the four pillars of red smoke filling the sky. From behind a mud pillar Vire took quick peeks and snapshots at any bulbous grey head he could spot coming down the dirt road. Redshirt was pinned behind a rusty old station wagon that was being shredded to swiss cheese. A trooper named Froyd managed to scoop Carlson's SAW from the dirt and was returning fire at the aliens up the road. Each soldier was peppering away at the advancing enemy with surprising success as Ros after Ros fell to the storm of gunfire. Any joy felt from their success died with the cutoff, gurgling, order from Sly to fall back to the Alam-.

Smith didn't take any time to mourn the assured loss of their sergeant and immediately order what remained of his team to display towards the Alamo. Vire, Smith, and Redshirt shouted as the barked down streams of bullets to pin the aliens while Froyd fell back behind them. Next was John's turn to fallback and join Froyd in supporting the others, he didn't notice the plasma bolt almost decapitate him. By the time the team made it back to the Alamo position what was left of Alpha had already arrived, and it wasn't much. Erlock stood in the doorway keeping a very cautious over watch and waved bravo inside when he caught a glimpse of them. Inside were six guys from Chalk-2 and two other guys from Alpha, Sly not amoung them.

"What's the word?" Smith asked.

"Command said area is too hot to send an evac bird or gunships, but apparently some pros are on their way to support us." Srgt. Merrick of Chalk-2 didn't seem too excited by what he had just said.

"Something up with the support?" Redshirt gasped when he saw the Sergeant's face.

"They're the specialists on this stuff, but they're coming from Japan." The Merrick hung his head low as he explained.

Froyd gagged in disappointment. The usually calm squad leader's eyes bulged in disbelief. With a big dry gulp Vire straightened his back and shouldered his rifle. "Sergeant, I recall standing orders are invaders must die."

The sergeant smirked and so did most of the rangers in earshot. Most knew this building would be their tomb but they'd be damned if they didn't get to share it with Ros and his pals. The rangers fanned out in the building and set up defensive positions anywhere they could. Vire ran to the roof with satchel charge big enough to level the building for when "the time comes" and an extra couple of magazines from Chalk-2's dead d.m. The three remaining gunners set up on the second floor and set up ammo caches by the stairwell for the one surviving assistant gunner to run between. The rest set up on the bottom floor with bayonets fixed and sidearms ready to be quick drawn. On the roof Redshirt set himself next to Vire and slid a fresh magazine into his rifle before sighing deeply. Down the road that divided the town in half Vire could see Ros gathering and organizing to attack where the rangers were held up, not an ounce of determination in their hollow black eyes.

"Never thought this would be it, I never woulda guessed I'd die like this." Redshirt smiled and shook his head at the ironic jinx his brothers put on him when they dubbed him Redshirt.

Vire shrugged, "The way I see it, every human comes into this world kicking and screaming while covered in someone else's blood, so why not go out the same way."

Redshirt smiled and nodded while whispering a silent hooah to him. It wasn't much longer that the Alamo was hit from every direction by small packs of Ros. Vire and Redshirt fired down at advancing groups from various positions on the roof. Vire hit almost exclusively with headshots at the short range while Redshirt was fine with tight groups on chests. The sun began to set on the rangers while they released hell into the advancing groups of Ros that seemed almost unending. Vire spotted a Ros with a strange purple glow leading back into a building nearby, he followed the bouncing trail until he spotted a Ros with a glowing head in a second story window. With three shots in a quarter inch group on the alien's head the Ros went down and the trail slowly dissolved. Vire followed the trail back to the first alien who started to convulse before dying. The d.m's eyes widened before he turned to Redshirt and order the ranger to spread the word to the others that one of the glowing aliens controls the other.

Redshirt ran downstairs shouting the new intel in time to see one of the front walls blow apart in a green cloud taking three rangers with it. Redshirt's ears rang and his world spun as he watched the mammoth aliens clad in green storm through the gap and begin to slaughter the soldiers on the bottom floor. Redshirt fought to climb back to his feet but was kicked onto hisbag by one of the big aliens. The Muton had no clue what the dying human was clutching in his hand but he had a good guess when the ranger smiled and waved a hand with a grenade spoon on each finger before crying out 'Breach'.

The blast shook each floor and even the roof when Redshirt martyred himself. Vire was none the wiser that his dear friend was gone but figured with the resounding explosion from downstairs and the slowed stream of enemies that it was time to fight inside. Once down the stairs to the second floor Vire's assumptions were confirmed. Two mutons remained and were tossing the last six sectoids up the broken stairs to engage the last of the rangers. Vire quickly ended the lead sectoid with a bullet through its head and the next with three to its chest. The next few were cut down but a maelstrom of gunfire from one of the side rooms where Vire was pretty sure Erlock set up. Vire sprinted around the gap and almost had his leg blown off by a muton downstairs as he jumped over a sectoid corpse and slid into the roof the bullets came from. Inside was Erlock and the assistant gunner named Kyle Perlos, the two were bloodied and struggling to find ammo for the depleted 60. Vire quietly nodded when Erlock greeted him upon entering the room. Vire pressed his back to a the doorframe and peered around carefully down the hole that was now the stairs at the pair of mutons that argued at the bottom of the destroyed stairs.

"Thank God for Redshirt man, else we'd be toast." Erlock said somberly. Vire looked back at Erlock with a confused expression but it faded when he put two and two together.

Erlock swore loudly and threw down his 60 when he and Perlos confirmed there was no ammo anywhere for it. Vire himself was down to his last mag and swapped out his bipod for a bayonet. Perlos still had his bayonet fixed to his rifle and he was down to a mag and a half. Erlock swore again as he drew his pistol and his knife. First soldier shook his head with a look of defeat but then he began to laugh and roll his head back. Perlos looked confused but started to laugh as well when Jordan stood up and rested his hands on his knees. Vire cracked a smirk and shrugged before turning his head back to look towards the missing mutons. The d.m's eyes widened when he snapped his head over to his brothers, he barely got out the warning when the arks of green ripped through the floor and shredded the duo. Two bloody pulps fell through the destroyed floor and onto the heads of the two laughing mutons. Vire looked in horror through the hole as the big green beasts toyed with the bodies of his fallen brethren. Vire tugged out the satchel in slow dreadful motion. His fingers shook, not with fear but with hate, as he tugged at the priming cord. At the top of his lungs Vire roared 'fuck you, from Earth' before pegging the closest muton with the satchel and running for a hole in the wall. The building exploded behind Vire as he flew through the air towards the neighboring building. The blast took both mutons with it, unfortunately it also took most of the one next door with it. From the burning wreckage of the next-door building Vire dug himself up from the ruble and shook off the dust. He almost felt pride until he heard two massive footfalls behind him. Vire sighed and smirked as he whispered 'see ya soon brothers.' Vire whipped around and started back peddling as he let off round after round into the giant muton's dome behind him. The muton was unhindered by the full magazine of lead stuck in its skull and pressed its charge at a bug eyed Vire. The muton berserker smashed through anything in its way while it pursued Vire who used the freerunning skills he learned growing up in the slums of the Dominican Republic to run over and under any fallen debris. The door Vire crashed through came apart with ease and let the ranger into a plain house with only one way in and out. Vire cursed himself and looked around for anything he could use, he found nothing and the berserker was closing fast. The wall burst into confetti-like shards when the berserker arrived in the dusty old house. The behemoth was incredibly confused when he looked down to find the soldier's vests and gear on the floor beside his rifle. The muton scratched its head with a mighty clawed fist just before Vire threw himself from his position between the ceiling and two walls. Vire wrapped one arm around the muton's throat and pressed the barrel of his sidearm to its temple with his other hand. Vire yelled and snarled while firing round after round into the berserkers head until his pistol clicked dry. The muton still moved, though much slower, and tried to rip Vire off its head while the ranger struggled to hang on. In a last ditch effort Vire drew his field knife and buried it deep in the side of the muton's fat neck and slowly started to saw it off with the serrated edge. Vire screamed with the muton as they both were tagged with a fountain of orange gore. Vire was halfway through sawing off the muton's head when he saw the big gauntleted fist headed for his face, in his final moments Vire smiled and pulled through the beserker's jugular.

Somewhere in Afghanistan

July 14th, 2016

2248

The Skyranger came in fast, the team of X-COM troopers inside hated that it took so long to help the soldiers and when they heard that they team went dark hours ago the troopers couldn't help but blame themselves. The six man team that made up X-COM's A-team known as 'Spades' charged from the drop doors of the skyranger in typical, tactical, fashion. Team Leader Benjamin Martin surveyed the scene. The Afghan town was tagged in blood and bodies most of which centered around one large building. The commander had informed that they were picking up no alien presence but the team needed to be sure before allowing the eggheads to come and tear things apart, also the former American Delta-Force operator on their team named Kyle Lewis demanded they recover the tags and bodies of the fallen rangers. The curious thing was, no ranger bodies were immediately found. Where there was blood, casings, and alien bodies there were no rangers. The eerie thought that the aliens were stealing bodies for whatever reason was swapped with the gut wrenching feeling the troopers got when they spotted the new enemies. Even X-COM had yet to encounter the mutons let alone the berserker, the feeling of fault and failure grew greater when the troopers realized the rangers died doing their job.

"Hey King you better come see this!" called a Japanese trooper to Martin.

"What is it Jack?" Martin called back to the Japanese trooper using his callsign.

"I found Ace's missing rangers, sir." Jack looked confused. "They are all here, tags gone, weapons and equipment gone, their faces covered by their jackets, and they were surrounded by all kinds of traps."

"What exactly do you mean traps?" Ace asked as he approached Jack who held up a cluster of grenades tied to a string.

"A grenade bouquet? That's definitely not alien." Called the female gunner over her shoulder while watching one of the side roads

"I found a bunch of this kind of thing too, some traps more crude than others." King nodded at Jack's observations then stepped a few paces back.

"Alright team, I think we've got a surviving ranger here somewhere so let's fan out and see if we can find this G.I, he deserves to go home." A mix of accents responded with sir yes sirs before splitting into three teams of two in search of the missing ranger. Several wondered why was it that the ranger was hiding from them, but they found their answer when Ace reported a small group of thin man corpses inside one of the buildings. It was likely now that either the ranger was killed by the second wave or he's too paranoid to approach any of the X-COM troopers. Ace was examining a brutalized muton berserker that had been strung up to a wall with a sign nailed to its chest by knife that read "E.T phoned home, none saved him, and none will save you". Ace couldn't help but smirk at his fellow soldier's brutality but also felt unnerved by it. He was no stranger to violence and of course had his own extreme hatred for the aliens but he had never thought of something like this. From behind Ace heard his partner 10 swear and sigh before a hushed voice ordered him to lay down his weapon and turn around. Ace complied and turned to see the dry blood stricken face of a terrifying ranger. The ranger had his back to a corner, an orange coated knife to 10's throat and the X-COM trooper's laser pistol in hand. Ace couldn't help but smile again as he felt himself grow fond of this young ranger. Vire cocked his head back and to the side slightly to check the patch of the trooper's uniform.

"On your back, you have the American flag, but I don't recognize that patch of yours." Vire said nodding towards Ace's shoulder.

"I'm part of a special unit that kills aliens soldier and yes I'm an American." Ace replied with a soft tone and raised hands as he tried to take one step forward but was stopped when Vire slid his blade slightly on 10's neck.

"Yeah? A special unit aye? Well that's what those skinny fuckers said when they came here, and they weren't too friendly neither." Vire held his arm with a little more slack but kept the pistol trained on Ace. "

"Look ranger don't be a motard, let that roper go and I can get you out of here!" Ace nearly shouted.

"Motard." Vire repeated with a grin and released 10 who scurried to Ace's side and raised his rifle while Vire lowered the pistol. "Yeah, you gotta be human." Said with a weak smile.

"More than just that ranger, I'm a former D-boy and current X-COM. Now, let's get your ass home."

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A/N watch?v=gTw2YvutJRA

alright so that was a short first chapter I know, but I prefer easing people into things "leave them wanting more" you know? anyway hope you all enjoyed and will toon in again for my next chapters i will be shifting between writing chapters for this and for my Overlord x-over so itll likely be rather infrequent when i post updates but ill try to shoot for at very least once a week each. Next chapter I promise will be about actual X-COM but maybe not in the exact way you'll think so just wait and see ;)


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